1897, Hans O’Callahan Farms, Michigan, Bigfoot

TODAY IN BIGFOOT HISTORY! In 1896, Hans O’Callahan inherited a 400 acre farm from his distant relations in the middle of Michigan. Relocating his family from the Carolinas proved most troublesome. More than it was worth, so O’Callahan abandoned his wife and 7 children, faking his own death in a canoeing accident. No one really believed it, especially not Mr. Mortenstern of Mortenstern and Willis Bank who held all the family’s debt. But that is another matter.

O’Callahan made most of his miserable fortune on the grift and graft – selling elixirs and ointments mostly concocted from berries and chalk – and as such was ill prepared to take over a working farm. Let alone a 400 acre one.

After a year of utter failure, poverty, and despair, O’Callahan overheard a drunken discussion of the Michigan Wildman or the Sasquatch. He took great interest in the story of how this fierce and brutal creature, 8 feet tall, with terrible teeth and monstrous paws, terrorized women and road men, alike. A few days later he devised an ingenious ploy to separate fools and their money.

Hans O’Callahan spread a rumor among the town’s general supply store and bars that he had several nasty encounters with this Sasquatch on his land. And that he had come upon nests and other evidence that there were many such creatures living on his 400 acres.

Once the stories were commonplace and he was being asked or stopped anywhere he went. He put into motion the second part of his plan. He organized Sasquatch Hunts. For a small fee, brave and steely men, no children or ladies allowed, could spend a night on his property. Anything they captured or killed would be their sole property, but he did not guarantee anything – let alone survival!

So it was in 1897. that Hans O’Callahan organized the first ever BIGFOOT ATTRACTION!